THE LAW; Defense Lawyers Take Aim at Police Taping

Six weeks ago the Connecticut state police were sued for tape-recording telephone conversations between defendants and their lawyers. Now lawyers across the country are raising questions about confidentiality in their backyards.

The Connecticut case stemmed from the revelation that nearly all telephone lines into state police barracks were tapped and recorded. The police say the taping was done to provide a backup for emergency calls, but among the conversations automatically recorded were those between suspects being questioned at the barracks and their lawyers.

From Rhode Island to New Jersey to Georgia, the grapevine of newsletters, facsimile machines and old-fashioned courthouse gossip that links the nation's legal defense bar has hummed with news of the suit.

And a Congressional subcommittee opening hearings this week on the issue was told that police departments around the country routinely record conversations between suspects and their lawyers. Initial indications are that the state or local police in at least 12 other states besides Connecticut routinely record lawyer-client conversations.

''A clear pattern is emerging across the country,'' Representative Robert W. Kastenmeier, chairman of the courts subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, said Tuesday. He suggested that Federal funds might be cut off for police forces that violate existing law.

Mr.. Kastenmeier, a Wisconsin Democrat, said existing law forbidding unauthorized bugging was clear. The problem, he said, is that it is being ignored and no one is enforcing it.

There is wide interest in the subject, lawyers say, because the prized right of attorney-client confidentiality is at issue and because there could be big civil damage awards if the charges are proved. 'A Sacred Privilege'

''Everybody knows this is a sacred privilege,'' said Miles Feinstein, president-elect of the 600-member Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers of New Jersey. ''Any violation can erode all the rights we've got,'' The New Jersey association is to decide by next week whether to seek financial damages or a court order to halt what it considers overly broad taping policies in several municipal police departments.

Lawyers in other states have moved even faster.

In Rhode Island, lawyers are to begin advertising next month for possible taping victims who might be transformed into plaintiffs against the state police. The police have admitted taping from some telephone lines on which defendants might have called their lawyers.

In West Virginia, lawyers said they would sue the state police to halt taping at police stations. In Georgia, lawyers have already assembled witnesses to testify about taping within the sheriff's office in Douglas County, a suburb of Atlanta. And in Utah, lawyers are preparing to sue over what they consider illegal taping of conversations at the state prison. Nationwide Inquiry Pressed

Both the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers have urged their members in every state - through questionnaires and newsletter notices - to investigate local police taping practices and report back or take action.

''We trying to make sure that everyone around the country knows,'' said R. Keith Stroup, executive director of the defense lawyers association, which has nearly 6,000 members. ''I can't imagine there's a criminal lawyer in the country who wouldn't scream to high heaven and say, 'Whom do I sue and in which court do I file the suit?' ''

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Experts said that while the limits of law-enforcement taping made up the common theme of the legal inquiries around the country, there were sharp distinctions from state to state, with the key variables being who might have been taped and where. Some Limits on Suing

In West Virginia, for example, no victims could be found to sue for damages, said Monty L. Preiser, a Charleston lawyer involved in planning the suit there, because state law requires arrested people to be taken to a magistrate or to a local municipal jail, said Monty L. Preiser, a Charleston lawyer involved in planning the suit there. Thus, he said, no calls were apparently made from defendants to attorneys on taped state police phones, and the suit will ask only that the practice be stopped by court order as a precaution.

Inquiries on taping in Utah, Indiana, Oregon and New Mexico concern prisons, which have generally justified curtailment of inmate rights as crucial to security.

''Once you're convicted of a crime, lots of rights are given up,'' said James J. Fyfe, a professor in the department of justice, law and society at American University in Washington. He said he thought that suits charging improper taping of conversations from prisons would face greater difficulty because the courts have generally allowed wide latitude to prison officials in questions of inmate security.

''There's a whole different body of case law,'' he said. Federal Laws at Issue

Federal wiretap laws, which are the basis for the five civil suits filed so far in Connecticut - four against the state police and one against the municipal police in Wallingford - require that at least one party in a taped conversation know the tapes are rolling.

If the taping is done for an illegal purpose - to obtain evidence that the police would not otherwise know about, say - criminal penalties up to to five years in prison and $250,000 in fines can be imposed. If there is no intent to use the tape improperly, civil penalties of at least $10,000 for each violation can be assessed.

In Connecticut, where the first suit was filed Nov. 9 by the Connecticut Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, several hundred people have already got in touch with association lawyers, saying they believed they might have made calls on taped phones. The union representing state troopers has also joined in the suit, contending that employees were taped without their knowledge as well.

Criminal investigations are also under way in the United States Attorney's office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

''It appears to be mushrooming,'' said Michael P. Koskoff, the chief attorney for the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.

Mr. Koskoff said copies of the association's lawsuit had flowed through his fax machine to curious lawyers from California to the Midwest.

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A version of this article appears in print on December 22, 1989, on Page B00007 of the National edition with the headline: THE LAW; Defense Lawyers Take Aim at Police Taping. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe